1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and an image forming system capable of performing a plurality of tasks (e.g., document scanning processing, document data print processing, facsimile transmission processing, e-mail transmission processing, and box storage processing) as a series of processing flows.
2. Description of the Related Art
On a conventional image forming system including a plurality of apparatuses in communication with one another via a network, a user can define a setting for performing a plurality of processing to be performed on document data with the plurality of apparatuses operating in cooperation with one another (a setting for cooperatively performing a plurality of processing). In a conventional image forming method, such a setting for cooperatively performing a plurality of processing can be reutilized by an external apparatus.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-287860 discusses a system configured to generate instruction data for cooperatively performing a plurality of processing, which can be reutilized by an external apparatus.
With such a configuration, in which instruction data can be utilized by an external apparatus, instruction data for cooperatively performing a plurality of processing, which has been generated by one user, can be utilized by another user. Thus, it is not necessary for such another user to generate a definition for cooperative processing. In addition, by using a common instruction for performing routine cooperative processing, document processing in a company or an organization can be sharedly performed. Thus, working efficiency can be improved.
However, the above-described configuration has the following problems.
For example, in the case of using a different image forming apparatus that performs a print task for each user who performs cooperative processing, it is necessary to register as many instruction data for cooperatively performing a plurality of processing as the number of users performing cooperative processing.
In addition, in the case where different instruction data is used for each user, it is necessary to modify the instruction data every time a user performs cooperative processing. In this case, an administrator of the system is required to take the trouble of such complicated maintenance operation.